If you love pickles, if you love bread, then boy howdy is this a recipe you need to make. The bread is amazing. Despite what you would think, it isn’t an overwhelming taste of dill or pickles. Instead, it is a beautifully soft bread with pickles in the dough. I will admit, hubby didn’t enjoy the bread at all but he also doesn’t enjoy pickles as all. Next time I make this, I will make individual size sandwich rolls so that I can grab one as I need it from the freezer rather than having the whole loaf go bad because I don’t eat a lot of bread in a week.

Pita bread from the store is always stale, hard, and tastes funny. Imagine my delight when I tried making it for the first time and it was amazing!

There they are on my new cast iron griddle turning into beautifully thin sandwich flatbread. The dough was soft, easy to handle, and baked beautifully on the griddle. These taste nothing like the commercial pita bread you purchase at the supermarket.

The bread looked so perfect and pretty I thought it was too good to be true. Luckily, it wasn’t. The loaf sliced beautifully, toasted even better, and was quickly demolished.

A quick side note on bread making, all bread I make with the exception of flatbread, pretzel, bagel, or quick breads always include 1 Tablespoon of Vital Gluten whether or not called for in the recipe. It is the little secret that professionals leave out of their recipes so their results are “better” than the home cook. All of my breads have been more tender, better consistency, and less crumbly than before I started using Vital Gluten.

I completely forgot to take pictures of the lovely cake I made for our family New Year’s Day get together. The cake was moist and incredibly tasty. Seriously, every member of my family from the youngest child to the oldest adult present loved the cake. It is one I will be making again, it is worth the time investment.

The glaze that the recipe calls for never got made, the cake was simply perfect without additional ingredients. It was moist and perfect. The lemon flavor was light without the glaze but there was plenty of flavor from the coconut oil I used. I also substituted a Tablespoon of butter for the butter extract. This cake will be made repeatedly.

No new and exciting main courses to report on because quite honestly there are enough leftovers from the party we are still eating those and the humdinger of a cold I’ve been fighting has left me zapped for energy lately. Hopefully next week sees me back in the kitchen trying out something new rather than sending hubby out to “cook” at the drive thru or reheating frozen leftovers.

Pretty aren’t they? Unfortunately this was one of those cases of appearances being deceiving. We wanted a quick dessert last night and hubby agreed to be my willing test subject. He was unhappy with the result from the first bite. I ate more than one bite, in an attempt to convince myself that the effort was worth the result.

These brownies were not sweet and were time intensive for the ultimate result. They needed flour, and sugar for a start. Luckily this is one of my few failures from Pinterest so I’m not going to complain too much.

My husband was working late the night I tried the recipe and I brought him a bowl in his office. He enjoyed it so much, he snuck out of the office for seconds and couldn’t and hasn’t, stopped raving about the meal. It was spicy and sweet. The best part about the meal was it’s simplicity. We don’t have Chinese delivery where we live and this meal will easily satisfy the craving for Chinese food. Also, the recipe will lend itself easily to adaption for pork or beef and the inclusion of vegetables.

Salted Pretzel Bread

Pretzel rolls are a favorite in this house but I’ve never found a recipe that tempted me to make. So it was with caution I made the second recipe this week, Salted Pretzel Rolls.

The recipe called for brown sugar instead of white and honestly, I’m leery of savory bread recipes that call for brown sugar. My misgivings were misplaced, the rolls were excellent if a bit too salty for my tastes. The recipe made eight rolls which were a little large, the size per roll can easily be reduced and still make excellent rolls for sandwiches. The recipes will also easily make traditional pretzels and pretzel bites for a party.

Golden Oreos

I made Golden Oreos for dessert for dinner at my parents house on Sunday. To be honest, initially I found the filling far too sweet. However, the filling mellowed as the day progressed and thus I recommend making the filling ahead of time.

I’ll admit I didn’t follow the recipe precisely. I didn’t chill the batter ahead of time which would have resulted in more uniformly shaped and flatter like the commercial version. However, I like the homemade look of cookies and the irregularity. I will also admit, I like the cookie straight up without the filling.

I have already promised to make these again in a couple of weeks. And judging by the audience above that I had while frosting the centers, the herd wouldn’t mind if I shared with them as well.

So this blog post is a mixed up mash of a collection of odds and ends of upcoming features I plan on writing about in the coming months.

First up in the collection, Pinterest which is a wonderful source for materials for all sorts of things. The above picture for example, which is a great reminder that all those emaciated and hungry looking fashion models you find on Pinterest are in no way a fair representation of humans.

Pinterest is this wonderful collection from people all over the global and I’ve used the site for years. It is providing me with writing inspiration for characters old, new, and those yet to come. The are also two boards of ideas I’ve repinned/save for use at a later date and those folders are growing ever fatter.

Here is the first upcoming feature, every week I’m going to pick there recipes and at least one drink recipe a week. It allows me to vary our standard, go to recipes around here and it cleans out the folders of bad choices. I’m thinking one bread, one main dish, and one dessert dish per week. I might vary it up and add appetizers as well. Truth is I’m pretty excited about this. I’ve accumulated all of these tempting looking recipes over the years and it is time to determine which are delicious and which are better left to others to enjoy.

Second up in the collection, I’ve decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month next month. I first learned of the event last year but I didn’t participate. This year I’ve decided to take part. I’ve gotten the outlines of the novel sketched out, which is the first time I’ve ever done such a thing. I’m excited to start writing to be honest, no that is an understatement. I keep writing the novel in my head every night when I go to bed.

As of today, I’m not sure if there will be short stories flushing out the backstory of the characters. I can tell you, the new novel is set in Washington State and is shaping up much more emotional than Smithson. Part of the reason I decided to take part in the event this year is to get me in the habit of writing every day, well at least five days a week perhaps six.

The third tidbit is the one that has been bothering me for many weeks. I have far too many short stories left in unfinished states on my short story blog. I haven’t been overly diligent on motivated to finish stories of late. It isn’t that I’ve lost interest more like I’ve been distracted by other interests and goals. I’ve made a personal decision to wrap up multiple story lines left dangling, The Widow and Dragonshead Village immediately spring to mind. I don’t think either of those stories will be turned into anything greater.

The Jane storyline is something different however. Jane has potential, so much so that there is a Pinterest board dedicated to her for future reference. There is untapped potential there which interests me greatly. I need to tap that potential after the first of the year. I think there are interesting novels in the Jane story line that need to be told.

The last tidbit involves the second novel in Smithson series, the above pictures hint at who Iris Douglas is at heart. I have set a goal of finishing the second Smithson novel by the end of the year regardless of holiday events and stresses. As part of that drive to finish the second Smithson novel, I have made a decision to continue to try and find a traditional publisher from the Smithson novels. I could self-publish quite easily but I honestly believe the writing quality is worthy of a traditional publisher.

I’ve started stitching once again which makes everything right in my world. The above is the pattern depiction of what I’m currently stitching, Witch’s Pantry by Lisa Cowell.

This is the beginning of the stitching and floss toss. I started the project at the beginning of the month with the hopes of finishing it by Halloween. However, we did some furniture rearranging which made my stitching lamp unusable for a week and then I jammed a couple of fingers badly. However, furniture is back where it belongs and my fingers are healing. Stitching will further aid my fingers recovering so I will be stitching every evening when I’m not writing or when I have a marathon HuluPlus session catching up on my “shows” for the week. Now if only Masterpiece Mystery was available on HuluPlus.

Finally, the reading bug has once again returned thankfully. Last several months, reading and I have been on opposite teams which is so very unlike me I lack the vocabulary to describe. Only trouble is, the desire to read and finish a novel sometimes wins over the compulsion and need to write and create.

I hereby admit the following, this exact posting will be reposted as a new post to a couple of blogs and I am horrible at managing a multitude of social media outlets for various projects at the same time. I am consolidating the social media circles to one twitter feed, one facebook feed, one pinterest feed, and one Google plus feed. Consolidation lets me manage all of my blogs, my Avon business, and the things that make me a complete human being more simply and concisely.

I decided to do this for a couple of reasons. First, trying to manage and maintain multiple social networks was taking over my life and certain ones were neglected in preference to more active ones. Secondly, a girl needs time to herself so that important activities like gardening, scrapping, stitching, gaming, or reading can actually happen! It’s very difficult to write about what’s happening in the kitchen or the garden if I’m never making cookies or picking flowers and vegetables. And lastly, having so many separate social feeds is beginning to make me feel like many one dimensional people all at the same time. I am SO over that feeling!

So, please update your links or add links as necessary. Existing separate accounts separate from the above listed sites will be deleted at the end of next week. Hope to see all of you on the new sites!

by Michelle Rene Goodhew. I am focused on the business of writing, being an artist, and general self improvement. I am seeking commissions as an artist doing portraits, illustration or graphic design. You can contact me by email: goodhewmichelle@gmail.com

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